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Miners’ boys’ basketball team: Can they do it?

Jen Watkins, Of the Record staff

They haven’t had a winning season since 2002. However, Park City High School boys’ basketball coach Caleb Fine thinks this will be the year the team turns things around.

"It was the lack of consistency in coaches and discipline for kids," Fine said. "There’s been very little consistency among the head (coaches) and that doesn’t help the program."

Fine is the seventh head coach in eight years, he said. And though he may be the youngest head coach in the state he graduated from PCHS in 2004 he said he plans on turning the basketball program into a winning program.

A recent graduate of Newman University in Wichita, Kansas, where he played guard and forward, Fine said the practices at PCHS now feel like college practices instead of high school practices.

"We coach it like a college team," Fine said. "It will pay off. This is a group that’s capable of changing their ways. We’re very talented."

Team captains Sam Sisk and Brian Schettler said they can already see a difference in the team from last year.

"We get a lot more done," Sisk said. "It’s strong right now. There are no negative attitudes."

Schettler said the practices are more intense and more focused.

"He pushes a lot harder," Schettler said of Fine. "We’ve worked way hard this year. Hopefully it shows."

Fine said he believes the team has responded well to the new practices and will be able to change the Miners’ losing streak.

"This team’s going to change a lot of opinions about Park City basketball, depending on how hard they play," he said. "It’s very hard in high school to realize how significant each practice is (but) they’ve been very respectful."

Fine said another factor that may help the team is that this is one of the first groups of kids to have played since they were young.

"We’re now starting to reap the benefits of a youth program that was installed six or seven years ago," he said. "Competitive teams that travel and play tournament:, (that’s) going above and beyond, and we’re definitely benefiting huge from that."

Fine said because the kids learned individual skills on competitive teams when they were younger, the practices can focus more on teamwork.

"Instead of teaching kids how to do a left-hand layup, I’m teaching them how to do team defense," he said. "We’re not teaching ball handling as much as we are team offense and defense. That’s huge. That’s nothing I did to get credit for. That’s credit to all the people that put time into these kids when they were younger."

Fine is hoping that will pay off as the Miners begin the season. The Miners played at East on Tuesday, Nov. 24. However results were not available at press time. The Miners will play at Manti on Dec. 2 at 7 p.m.

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